Astrology

Astrology is the study of synchronicities between the subjective experience of consciousness with the objective motion of the planets.

Astrology is today considered to be pseudo-scientific and proclaiming interest in it is often a sure-fire way to encourage strong gender-policing. Astrology is seen as feminine, subjective and "wishy-washy" and often evokes especially strong criticism from atheists and other skeptics.

However, the number of great scientists who were driven in their search for meaning by the guidance of astrological symbolism is quite remarkable. Isaac Newton was once criticized harshly for his interest and responded: "I have studied the matter, you have not".

Gender and Astrology

The depth with which some people claim to intuitively feel astrological signs as true is caught in cliches such as "oh, you're such a Leo". Picturing how often you hear men saying such things compared to women, should give most people a strong idea of why this is a gendered issue. Women who are interested in astrology are not openly ridiculed, though many will often scoff to themselves. Men, on the other hand, would (and are) be subject to much stronger gender policing for such apparently feminine interests. As is common, Gender Exemptions apply for example for gay men, who are free to express feminine interests without threatening the fragile masculinity of any other cis-gendered heterosexual men.

Beyond "Sun Signs"

Sun Sign astrology is the reduction of people to 12 discrete astrological characters (Aries, Taurus, Gemini,...,Pisces) based on the time of year they were born. This form of astrology has become extremely common since the 1940's, to the point that a common perception is that this is all that astrology is based upon.

Of course, confirmation bias can easily explain away any perceived `truth' to any classification based on only 12 non-overlapping archetypes. However, when extra astrological signs are included such as combining Chinese and Western zodiacs the 144 combinations can be described in much more detail. Any reader unsure of how they feel about the validity of astrology is invited to test their skepticism by looking through not only their own, but the Primal Astrology type of their close loved ones and see if they see the descriptions as worthy of merit.

Combatting bias is difficult, especially gendered bias, but there is evidence growing that the social difficulties of Asperger's syndrome can be relieved through applying astrological principles to social interaction - i.e. recognising that different people all have muliple, contrasting layers to their personality. Even if this is a placebo effect, it has potential to remove a lot of the gender gap experienced by neurodiverse people, which evidence implies is heightened compared to neurotypical experiences, leading to higher prevalence of gender dysphoria.